Bookmakers believe they can help revitalise the stuggling High Street, but the
anti-gaming rhetoric needs to go and consumers must be allowed to decide
what they can and cannot enjoy.

This week's prediction by the Local Data Company that high street vacancies are set to rise further in 2012 made grim reading for all.

Any number of trade bodies will be queuing up in the next few weeks to argue the case for their sector and why the government needs to do more to help them grow in the current climate.

But while most other retail sectors have had no shortage of support and encouragement from taskforces, tsars and working groups, bookmakers have had a much more difficult time winning support.

Mary Portas in her recent review of the high street questioned the place of betting shops in our town centres. The queen of shops argued that it should be more difficult for bookmakers to open up, suggesting that we are doing down the high streets on which we operate. Her proposals are currently being considered by the government.

Indeed, our industry is one of the few where business growth is seen as something to be actively discouraged. But rhetoric and restrictive policy against our industry risks plunging wider local economies into a more perilous state.

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First, let us clear up a common myth – that bookmakers are proliferating. Shop numbers have remained stable at about 8,500 for the past decade, down from 10,000 a decade ago and over 15,000 at the end of the 1960s.

Bookmakers have also felt their fair share of pain in recent times. Total shop numbers in the UK were down year on year in 2011 with over 100 smaller shops closing and five hundred jobs lost. Clustering of betting shops on high streets in deprived areas is a theme that often gets thrown about by commentators.

It is true that there are more betting shops on some high streets than there used to be. But critics overlook the fact that in these areas we are occupying shops that would otherwise be left vacant, paying business rates and creating jobs.

The average betting shop pays about £10,000 in business rates each year. Many councillors on the ground in inner city areas are struggling already to fund local projects with one in seven shops vacant: do they really want to choke off even more revenue?

We would welcome an open dialogue with groups such as the Local Government Association on this issue.

We are a vital source of jobs in the community. We support 100,000 jobs and pay close to £1 billion in tax each year, which is about £400 million more than we make in profit. We challenge any other industry to offer this kind of ratio.

Our industry offers twice the number of jobs than the average to those without formal qualifications each year. While some may be sniffy, the betting industry is famous for the success stories it creates from raw ingredients. Our industry is full of individuals who began on the shop floor and have worked their way up – including the chief executive of one of this country's biggest betting brands.

But 8m adults do not choose to visit our shops each year because we can offer a strong corporate responsibility brochure. At heart our product is fun, offering low ticket entertainment similar to a couple of pints in the pub.

Although the number of women visiting our shops is on the rise, we do not apologise for the fact that we are popular among working class men. Just as the sushi bars of Islington are not ashamed of some of their core clientele.

Given that our product is safe, consumers deserve the right to decide for themselves what they can and cannot enjoy. Problem gambling levels remain at a similar level to 1999 and low internationally. Councillors rarely put forward convincing evidence that betting shops cause crime.

Bookmakers want local economies to be successful. Revitalising them is fundamental to our country's future success and prosperity.

We can play a role in bringing about this change – bookmakers after all contributed over £3 billion to the UK economy last year in areas like consumer footfall and supply chain jobs. But we can only continue do this if our contribution is accepted.

We hope that MPs and councillors take this on board – if only to avoid similarly grim predictions for our town centres this time next year.

Dirk Vennix is the chief executive of the Association of British Bookmakers